Scanning overseas box office charts is like strolling the aisles of a foreign supermarket. The old familiar produce is still there and still prominent, although it sits cheek-by-jowl with local cuisine that can seem exotic, enticing or off-putting, depending on your predilections.

So yes, German audiences, like their British counterparts, are currently devouring The King's Speech, Rango, Black Swan and True Grit. They are also partial to films such as Der ganz grobe traum, Dschungelkind and Ya Sonra? The year's biggest hit, meanwhile, is Kokowääh, which has earned a phenomenal €26m (£22.5m) after just five weeks on general release.

So what is Kokowääh, and what makes it so good? A cursory investigation leaves me none the wiser. "Anybody who likes KeinOhrHasen or ZweiOhrKüeken will love Kokowääh," promises an enthusiastic user on IMDB.com, while the official trailer provides more questions than answers.

I can't make head nor tail of it. This might be a chaste, Leon-style romance between a local leg-breaker and a winsome schoolgirl. Or worse – it might be a horror flick in which an everyday German finds himself preyed on by a Satanic imp.

On closer inspection, it turns out to be neither. Instead, Kokowääh concerns a failed scriptwriter and the eight-year-old girl who rolls into his life and claims to be his daughter (smart money says she's lying and it's all part of a scam).

The film was co-written and directed by Til Schweiger, who is probably best known to non-German audiences for his turn as Hugo Stiglitz in Inglourious Basterds. Schweiger plays the hero and his daughter Emma co-stars as the girl who is either his long-lost daughter or a sly and spiteful con-artist (presumably, time will tell).

The title refers to the way a small child might mispronounce "coq au vin". As for the film itself, the Hollywood Reporter describes it as "unduly long and unevenly structured". It goes on to imply that the performance by little Emma Schweiger is a whole heap of rubbish.

While reviewer Karsten Kastelan predicts (presciently, it turns out) that the film will do well in German-speaking territories, he adds that its "sickening sweetness and bumbling narrative should preclude any other major expansion". This inevitably means that English-speaking audiences may never get to judge it for themselves.

The Guardian's New Europe season kicks off today, with the focus on Germany. Bear in mind that we are tourists here. We don't speak the language and all cultural nuance is lost on us.

So this plea goes out to German readers. Tell us about Kokowääh. Is it representative of modern German cinema, or some weird anomaly? Why might it not translate to non-German audiences (and is this even a bad thing)? What is the secret of the film's success – and while we're about it – what is the alternative?

If you could recommend one great German film from the past 12 months, what would it be – and what makes it great?